BludgerTrack: 51.8-48.2 to Labor

After last week’s lurch to the Coalition, the BludgerTrack poll aggregate is back where it was a fortnight ago after three stronger poll results for Labor, most notably from Newspoll.

The BludgerTrack yo-yo moves in Labor’s direction this week, returning to almost exactly where it was a fortnight ago after lurching to 50.1-49.9 in favour of the Coalition last week. The movement last week was driven by a 51-49 lead to the Coalition in Nielsen, while this week’s comes on the back of three strong results for Labor from Newspoll, Morgan and Essential, with the former having the greatest weight in the model. The primary vote results are notable for having the Greens at a new high for the current term, and a look at the charts suggests the recent move in their favour is more than just statistical noise.

On the seat projection, Labor is up 11 this week after losing 10 last week, the distribution of gains being two from New South Wales, one from Victoria, four from Queensland, two from Western Australia and one each from South Australia and the Northern Territory. This is the second week in a row that four seats have shifted on the Queensland projection, emphasising the point that the state remains a target-rich environment for marginal seats. Newspoll also provides a new set of results for leadership ratings, which produce only negligible shifts on last week’s numbers.

The Indonesia Institute, a Perth-based think tank, says carers from countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines should be allowed to come to Australia and mind children for $200 a week to help ease pressure on family budgets.
Under the scheme families would provide their Asian child carers with accommodation, clothing and medical insurance. The nannies would be entitled to Sundays off and a return airfare home for two weeks each year.

It is not just offensive, it is obscene, on so many levels.

Because of that, I am sure it will be blue Tory policy soon.

Everything, et al, will thrill to think they can get almost slaves again.

I think, since the Catholic Church is not going to dump or demote Pell (even though he took the wrong approach to abuse compensation, for which he should be dealt with), that moving him to a non-pastoral role is good. His stubborn interest in the finances of the Church will likely be put to good use in this new role, fixing up Church financial corruption.

I am not opposed to the idea of allowing people in to Australia to do domestic work. I would set the pay minimums at the sane rate for Australians though. I oppose poverty around the world and do not think lines on a map should stop people getting jobs to get themselves out of poverty.

Since a very high proportion of Australian households, 75.5% was the figure I saw last (when economic stats that showed Australia`s wealth were being posted to point out the previous government`s success), are in the top 10% of household income, it is perfectly reasonable for a significant proportion of Australian households to have one or more servants. It could reasonably be argued that noblesse/richesse oblige.

Re Pell
________
I offer no support for Pell ,but a close friend who knew him well years ago in Ballarat when he had a high post in the local Catholic Church(then went from, there to Higher Things.. first in Melb then Sydney now Rome.)…found him a very efficent but a rather remote and aloof individual

My friend thought that Pell may be a little depressive,and incapable of any warmth and intimacy with others..and lived a very private life

In Rome he may be quite competent and probably able to deal with the corruptuion which he may unravel inside the Vatican’s financial world…safe there from the more worldly problems of daily life…and very comfortable in Domus Australia …the hotel/guest-house he set up for Australian visitor and where he has a fine apartment…there a worse places to spend one’s declining years than Rome

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/28/a-cup-of-tea-with-the-cardinal-what-george-pell-did-in-the-ellis-case…..
The Ellis case began in the supreme court of NSW on 20 July 2005. Out of the blue that evening, Ellis’s lawyers had a call from the man known at the commission as SA. Over the objections of Pell’s lawyers, the judge heard SA’s evidence. He had been an altar boy at the cathedral in the early 1980s when Duggan began to abuse him. In 1983 he gave a statutory declaration detailing the abuse to the cathedral’s dean, Michael McGloin. The dean did nothing but make SA face Duggan. SA gave up at that point. He said: “I felt devastated … I felt that my complaint had not been taken seriously.”

Dalzell at Corrs thanked the church’s barristers for the hard work they had done in the first week of the trial: “It was greatly appreciated and you will be greeted with open arms at the Pearly Gates.” He had looked at the McGloin situation: “It turns out Father McGloin has a complaint file as big as the New Testament … including some underage sex.” The priest had been effectively sacked and was living somewhere down south.

Even more stunning was the news that Corrs now knew of a woman who could directly corroborate of Ellis’s allegations. A Mrs Judith Penton had befriended Duggan in the late 1970s and had told the lawyers she had often heard the priest speak of loving boys and how they loved him. One night she saw Ellis kiss Duggan. But this evidence was never heard in court.

To increase the wages of unskilled work, the surplus labour pool must be reduced. Allowing far greater access to developed world jobs would dramatically speed that up. It is not a panacea for world poverty, but it would help.

To increase the wages of unskilled work, the surplus labour pool must be reduced. Allowing far greater access to developed world jobs would dramatically speed that up. It is not a panacea for world poverty, but it would help.

Oh great idea!

Unfortunately there is already high unemployment in developed countries including Australia.

Thanks to Imacca, I have read though part of the Eatcock v Bolt case, the case which the anti s18c & s18d crowd have been pushing to remove.

Must say on reading it Bolt has done himself no favors, now i do recall the newspaper articles and it was clear at the time that he was running a campaign against a group of fair skinned aboriginals yet in this case he actually disputes that to be the case.

Jobs are Supply vs Demand, just like every other industry, fix the Demand part, then you more than likely fix the Supply problem, and some of the other problems.

Unfortunately, we have a Supply issue with little Demand for jobs.

The fact that this gov seems to be creating more unemployed than jobs, seems they have their priorities wrong, again.

In the aggregate, demand for labour is a function of aggregate income. So if we are to expand effective demand for labour we have to focus on expanding real disposable incomes in a context of continual structural economic change. There are several ways to do this. These include

– achieving a relatively even distribution of incomes (low incomes earners tend to spend more of their incomes than do the wealthier and this spending is a source of demand for labour in an economy)

– improving access to training, re-training and higher education (this promotes vertical as well as horizontal labour mobility by allowing workers to compete for better paid work as well as improving their productivity)

– favouring the application of new technologies and learning, and systems, processes, regulations and market mechanisms that reduce the cost of goods and services (and therefore increase the real incomes of consumers)

– providing hard and soft public infrastructure that will generate long term efficiencies in the economy (also adding to future real incomes)

– running the taxation and financial systems in ways that allocate capital into productive enterprises rather than into housing and land speculation (because this will add to the productive potential of the economy and to future incomes)

– ensuring that workers are free to move between jobs (especially, making sure that workers are never subject to indentures or other terms that limit their rights to leave unfavourable employment or to bargain for better wages and conditions, meaning workers rights to organise and unionise must be well protected)

– ensuring the social welfare system is strong and reliable. This encourages households to spend rather than save over their lifetimes and helps stabilize demand over the business cycle, acting to sustain employment and economic momentum. I would also argue an effective social welfare system also gives every citizen a personal stake in the success of the wider economy and encourages the ready formation of “social capital” – the willingness to invest in education and innovation and to share the frictional costs that inevitably accrue in a dynamic, competitive economy.

I also proffer the view that we need to try to re-understand “income” within economics. At its most general, income is the means available to us to satisfy our needs and wants. Income accrues as money and it also accrues in non-monetary forms, especially from the natural and cultural environments in which we all live and on which we depend. If we dedicated more energy to expanding the various means by which we meet our many needs – by doing more with less, by harnessing our creativity, by choosing smarter technologies and investments with better financial, environmental and social rates of return – we will axiomatically increase our “incomes” in the broadest sense and thereby increase our capacity to provide work for all those who seek it.

At least 778 executions were carried out in 2013 - up from at least 682 in 2012 - according to the latest global report from Amnesty International.

The report documents executions in 22 countries in 2013, a rise on the previous year when executions were recorded in 21 countries worldwide. The countries with the highest number of executions were China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, USA and Somalia.

According to Amnesty International, China executed more people than the rest of the world put together- but as data on the use of the death penalty is considered a state secret, no exact numbers are recorded in the report. They state that the 778 figure does not include the thousands of executions carried out in China.

Excluding China, the report says:

At least 778 people were executed in 22 countries in 2013. In 2012, Amnesty International reported at least 682 executions in 21 countries worldwide. At least 1,925 death sentences were recorded in 57 countries in 2013, an increase from the 2012 figure of 1,722 in 58 countries. 23,392 people are thought to have been on death row at the end of 2013.

The latest data shows a stark rise in the number of executions carried out in Iran and Iraq. Iraq saw a 30% increase in the number of people put to death, rising from 129 in 2012 to 169 in 2013. Although official figures for Iran report 369 executions (up from 314 in 2012) Amnesty state that credible sources report at least 335 additional executions, bringing the total to at least 704.

Capital punishment in Russia has been indefinitely suspended, although it is theoretically allowed, with the only legal method being shooting. There exists both an implicit moratorium established by the President Yeltsin in 1996, and an explicit one, established by the Constitutional Court of Russia in 1999 and which was most recently reaffirmed in 2009. Russia has not executed anyone since 1996, and the regulations of the Council of Europe prohibit it from doing so at any time in the future. However, the death penalty still remains codified.

About this blog

William Bowe is a doctoral candidate with the University of Western Australia’s Discipline of Political Science and International Relations. He has been running the electoral studies blog The Poll Bludger since January 2004, independently until September 2008 and thereafter with Crikey.